What took Lurie so long?

PHILADELPHIA --- The next coach of the Eagles will be on a one-step corporate staircase, a short but distinct climb to the top. After 14 years, that’s Jeffrey Lurie’s story anyway, so he will tell it his way.

“The way I’ve operated is the way I’m going to operate,” Lurie said Monday. “And that is the new head coach, whoever that is, will report directly to me. And that’s the only structure that I insist upon.”

Lurie fired Andy Reid, an indication that this time, he is serious. But why did it take so long? Why did the Eagles suffer Reid for so many years, through so many postseason disappointments, through a public attitude that dug at his fans like needles, sharp ones?

Why did Lurie tolerate Reid’s chronic inability to manage his timeouts? Why didn’t the owner grumble more --- or at least louder --- when authorities said that heroin and later steroids were found at the Eagles’ training camp? Why did he ignore the “Fire Andy” chants?

And why didn’t he fire Reid a year earlier, after an 8-8 season decorated with a 4-0 finish that even the owner had to shrug was, “fool’s gold?”

Wasn’t Lurie stationed in that same auditorium about a year ago, standing behind that very lectern, delivering a rambling speech about how the season had been so unacceptable? Who was the fool all along?

“I really believed in my decision to keep him,” Lurie said. “Because I thought that after every single year after going 8-8, that we were a double-digit win team and in the playoffs. So I was absolutely certain that’s what was going to happen this year.

“And I was very wrong.”He had company --- in the press, in Vegas, in his locker room, where his quarterback had called out a play for a dynasty. The Eagles should have been better than 4-12. Instead, they deteriorated. By season’s end, they were 35 points worse than the Giants, and that same quarterback was all but saying that some of his teammates had surrendered.

But that was what Lurie had accepted through the Reid era … the flaking public image, the plop into last place in the NFC East, a four-year record at the end that didn’t even match that of Rich Kotite. Why? Why was he so mesmerized by Reid that he even allowed his coach to hire a convicted animal abuser, counter to his own lifetime of tolerance?

That is the question that haunted as the Eagles and their fans realized Monday that they will never have those 14 years back: Why was that stalled era allowed to exist for so long?

“When we have a season like this year, it’s embarrassing to me and it’s personally crushing,” Lurie said. “Really, it’s terrible. Our fans are the best fans in the country. We say that a lot. These fans deserve the very best. This year, they got a team that was not very good at all. I feel terrible about that.”

Reid had his moments, most of them years earlier. He took the Eagles to a Super Bowl, even though he didn’t seem in much of a rush to play its fourth quarter. For a while, his teams ruled the NFC East, down as it was at the time. So Lurie kept waiting for the final step, a championship, and expecting Reid to pilot the lead parade float.

By Monday, Lurie was adding definition to his operation, reaffirming his trust in general manager Howie Roseman and keeping Don Smolenski in control of his store’s strongbox. That’s a departure from a recent past, when Joe Banner largely handled both jobs, all while providing a necessarily snarly buffer between the executive suite and the coach’s office.

Reid is gone, though. Soon, his influence must disappear too. For the past couple of days, the players he left behind have praised him, as have certain national media sorts, the ones he’d spent years charming. Lurie praised Reid, too. But at least the owner finally showed the strength to take his franchise back.